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PI OriginalMatthew BlakeTuesday October 2nd, 2012, 7:12pm

Climate Change On The Election Backburner

Climate change is now a peripheral issue in American politics, mentioned
elliptically by President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt
Romney in their calls for clean energy investments. Meanwhile, the issue is almost nonexistent in the competitive Illinois races for Congress.

Jim Lehrer, moderator of the first presidential debate, received a petition of 160,000 signatures collected by nine
environmental organizations last Friday.

The message to Lehrer from these
environmentalists was modest: Ask one question about what each
candidate will do on climate change.

“We are really optimistic
that he will ask a question,” says Jeff Gohringer, spokesman for the
League of Conservation Voters in Washington, D.C. But, Gohringer adds,
“It’s fair to say the economy will be first and foremost.”

Climate
change is now a peripheral issue in American politics, mentioned
elliptically by President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt
Romney in their calls for clean energy investments. The issue is almost nonexistent in the competitive Illinois races for Congress. The situation has posed a
challenge to environmentalists, with groups like the League of
Conservation Voters and Sierra Club, which endorse political candidates,
casting their lot with Obama.

Romney, Obama and Climate Change

America
has never been an international leader on climate change, famously not
joining other developed countries in signing the United Nations 1997
Kyoto Protocol to limit the greenhouse gases scientifically linked to global warming. But in 2008, both Obama and his Republican
challenger, U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, ran on “cap-and-trade”
plans to place a hard cap on greenhouse gases emitted from polluters, while also giving polluters emissions credits that they could trade among
themselves.

“Climate change was much more front and center in
2008,” says Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a non-profit
in Washington, D.C. that does not endorse political candidates.
“Certainly it wasn’t the dominant issue, but it was topical and both
candidates gave lip service that they wanted to deal with it.”

But the cap-and-trade bill unraveled in the U.S. Senate in 2010. O’Donnell gives a commonly espoused
view that “the White House did not throw its full weight into the
fight. They put their political chips on health care and did not have
enough political capital to do both.”

Regardless of how much
responsibility the Obama administration deserves for the death of
cap-and-trade, neither the President nor Congress have since made a
serious effort to set long-term caps on greenhouse gases. And neither
campaign, nor party platform, offers any such proposal. The 2008
Democratic Party platform called climate change an “epochal, man-made
threat to our planet” in advocating for cap-and-trade.

“There has definitely been a step back,” O’Donnell says.

As with a number of issues, from health care to reproductiverights, views from Romney on climate change have shifted over time. In 2004, when he was governor of Massachusetts, Romney pursued what he called a “no regrets” climate change policy with targeted reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

As
a presidential candidate, Romney has kept the “no regrets” name for his
climate change policy. However, the policy itself has changed.

Romney
now wants “robust government funding for research on efficient,
low-emissions technology that will maintain American leadership in
emerging industries,” according to written statements the candidate gave to the Web site ClimateScience.org.

The
investment, though is not coupled with regulating established
industries, such as coal. Instead, Romney accuses Obama of
“bankrupting the coal industry” with EPA regulations that are
pejoratively described as a “war on carbon dioxide,” according to
ClimateScience.org.

But it is these EPA regulations, on greenhouse
gas emissions from vehicle tailpipes and stationary sources such as
coal plants, that encourage environmentalists. “The president has shown
commitment to climate change by the actions he has taken,” says Courtney
Hight, deputy national political director for the Sierra Club.

Obama told ClimateScience.org that he established “historic” limits to greenhouse gas emissions.

O’Donnell agrees that the tailpipe emission standards are significant. However, the new reporting standards
for stationary greenhouse gas sources, which are the main contributor
to climate change, are probably less significant. According to
O’Donnell, natural gas prices are what is bankrupting the coal industry
and that the EPA regulations “may not have an impact at all.”

The
Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters each acknowledge that
significantly more must be done on climate change than what the Obama
administration has accomplished. But they blame Congress, especially the
U.S. House which turned majority Republican in January 2011, for further
inaction.

As for the matter of Obama not talking about climate
change, Gohringer of the League of Conservation voters blames the media,
not the President. “The media should be picking up on this,” Gohringer
says. “This is the biggest challenge of our generation and we are not
seeing the news attention it deserves.”

Climate Change on The Congressional Trail

Climate
change may emerge as an issue of some consequence in the 8th district
race between U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-McHenry) and Democratic challenger
Tammy Duckworth of Hoffman Estates.

The League of Conservation
voters has poured money into the race, identifying Tea Party candidate
Walsh as “one of five climate deniers in Congress we’re working to beat”, according to Gohringer.

But local candidates for Congress have said little about the matter.

For
example, in the 17th district, which covers a large swath of northwest
Illinois, U.S. Rep. Bobby Schilling (R-Colona) is down to the wire with
Democratic challenger Cheri Bustos of Moline. The campaign has centered
on job creation, specifically which candidate will stanch
the flow of jobs leaving the country. Medicare and social security are
also hot topics. Neither campaign mentions climate change on their Web
site.

According to an e-mail from campaign spokesman Arden
Manning, Bustos wants to “advance clean energy policies and investments
that will more rapidly move us from an over-reliance on fossil fuels to a
clean energy economy.”

“We must be mindful of the effects of
fossil fuel emissions and science that articulates its harmful impact on
the environment,” Manning added. “However, in doing so, we cannot lose
sight of other key national priorities.” Specifically, Bustos wants to
avoid “short-term harm on workers and our national defense.”

Schilling did not respond to requests for this story. He told the Quad-City Times
in October 2010 that “I believe climate change is real, but the
scientific data is inconclusive at this point as how grave the threat
is, or whether it is caused by humans or is a natural phenomenon.”

The
lack of political discussion on climate change does not mean that the
issue is less urgent than climate scientists previously feared. A report
released last week, commissioned by 20 governments, found that
400,000 people around the world die each year from the planet’s
warming. The report warns that this figure could climb to 700,000 annual
climate-related fatalities by 2030.

Election 2012 also comes amid
reports that accelerated melting of the polar ice caps and summer heat
waves in the U.S. are also linked to climate change.

Election

Public figures

Comments

Nancy L Wade

5:38pm

Thu Oct 4

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein puts the issue of climate change front and center. She is on the ballot in Illinois and 38 other states. She has qualified for federal matching funds, yet she has been excluded from the presidential debates. http://www.jillstein.org

In Illinois I am a Green Party candidate contesting the 5th district seat. I call for a National Environmental Defense Plan to combat climate change. www.wadeincongress.org

In the Illinois 12th congressional district Green Party candidate Paula Bradshaw is also strongly making the case for immediate, decisive action on climate change. http://bradshaw4congress.org/

Your members deserve to know that they have choices on the ballot to make a real progressive change in November.